Save As PDF Quirk

[Doug_Katz@adobeforums.com]

Thanks to the expertise and good graces of John Kallios, we seem to have found an oddity (dare I say a bug?) in the Save As PDF command. This will only interest those concerned about getting the smallest PDF files possible (e.g., for sending soft proofs to clients).

1. Make a multi-layered AICS file.

2. Add "reasonably" complex art to each (blends, clipping paths, brush strokes, styles, linked or embedded images, mesh objects, Effects, or similar).

3. Make all but 1 layer invisible.

4. Save As PDF.

5. Now, with the AICS image still open, temporarily DELETE all invisible layers (drag them to the Layers palette trash).

6. Do NOT save the AICS file, merely return to the Save As PDF dialog and create a second PDF with a new name.

The first PDF will be as large as had all layers been visible. The second PDF will be as large as had there been only the one layer in the AICS file to begin with.

[Lance_K@adobeforums.com]

Hi Doug,

I'm not sure I'd call that a quirk, exactly. More like expected behavior. Here's a couple more experiments to try:

Open your first PDF--the one with invisible layers--back in Illustrator. Note that the invisible layers are still there ready to be turned back to visibility.

Open your second PDF--the one with deleted layers--back in Illustrator. Note that the deleted layers are, uh, deleted.

Since Illustrator 9, the native format of Illustrator has been, essentially, PDF. When you set some layers as hidden and save your file as a PDF, the data that is in those hidden layers is retained, just as if you'd hidden some layers and saved the file as an Illustrator file.

Now for one more experiment. Try saving your file with the hidden layers as a PDF, only this time turn off the option for "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities." Note the resulting file size. When I tried this, I got a file size in between the size of the PDF with hidden layers and the PDF with deleted layers. And when I reopened the PDF in Illustrator, the layers that had previously been hidden were now gone.

Not sure exactly why the file size would still be larger than the PDF with the deleted layers, but the rest of the behavior seems fairly consistent.

Lance

[John_Kallios@adobeforums.com]

Linda

Uncheck Preserve Editing Capabilities

and

Uncheck Create Acrobat layers from top-level layers.

Do the save tests and reopen pdf in Illustrator. You will find the invisible layers are not there.

[Doug_Katz@adobeforums.com]

(He means Lance, but what he is urging is what I should have explicitly included in my original instructions.)

Lance if you make those AICS layers invisible and then uncheck those two preferences in the Save As PDF dialog, the resulting PDF should shrink to the size actually achieved when you delete them... because you're asking that those layers NOT be retained for a return trip into AI, no?

So the "quirk" is that you have to delete them under these particular circumstances.

[John_Kallios@adobeforums.com]

Sorry,

Just saw the L and the K and assumed it was Linda.

Sorry Lance.

[Lance_K@adobeforums.com]

Hi Doug,

Now I think I understand what you're saying, which I didn't get from your original post. That's why I added the "third" experiment, of saving the file with hidden layers as a PDF with Preserve Editing Capabilities unchecked.

Now I realize that my "third" test is actually what you were doing in steps 1-4 of your original post. With that in mind, here were the file sizes I got testing one particular Illustrator CS file that originally started with three layers and was saved in PDF format:

Two layers hidden, preserve editing capability checked--6 mb
Two layers hidden, preserve editing capability unchecked--3.5 mb
Two layers deleted, preserve editing capability checked--500 kb
Two laers deleted, preserve editing capability unchecked--84 kb

With preserve editing capability unchecked, hidden layers are eliminated, transparency is flattened, and styles applied to vector objects get broken into their component parts.

I guess the point I want to make (there is a point?) is that making layers invisible and disabling preserve editing capability so as to exclude the art from the PDF DOES make the file smaller--from 6mb down to 3mb in my case--but not nearly as small as actually deleting the layers.

And that does seem a bit quirky.

Lance

[Doug_Katz@adobeforums.com]

Exactly.

Mind you, this whole business is ONLY of concern when, for example, you want to make an as-small-as-possible screen preveiw for client or vendor viewing and/or that needs to be transmitted via dialup modem... one that you have no intention of bringing back into AI.

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

I for one am glad this has been clarified I was ready to chuck the whole Creative Suite!

BTW Doug there is another scenario whereby it might actually be important. I use
sometimes a lot of CAD files which often have many hidden and redundant objects and paths, if altering these and then sending the result to a client that does not have AI or is on a PC and has difficulty opening .eps files one might want to send a pdf in this state for review and comments.

So it is actually valuable to know about this as sending even twenty or thirty of these files would require a much smaller file size even with a T1 line.